


I'm Free

by mickian



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-27
Updated: 2014-03-27
Packaged: 2018-01-17 04:15:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1373581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mickian/pseuds/mickian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set after the hotel room scene in 4x09.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm Free

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Mentions of homophobia/violence/Terry.  
> Disclaimer: I own nothing etc, and the language used is that of the character's - it's Shameless, you know.

“That's just perfect,” Mickey says and grins as he folds the stack of money and tucks them in his pocket.  
  
“Now give me my things so I can get out of here,” the old dude says and holds his hand out.  
  
“Ah-ah, not so fast.” Mickey lifts one of his eyebrows and looks at Ian who smiles tightly back, hands in the pockets of his jacket while bouncing on the balls of his feet as he glances around. “Gotta make sure you don't run and tell on us, right? So we're taking this...” He holds up the guy's ID and squints his eyes at his name, “So you don't forget, Martin Cerioli, that we know _just_ where to send things if there would ever be a problem. Got it?”  
  
The man clenches his jaw and grabs for the wallet, Mickey tightening his grip on it before finally letting go, taking a step forward and holding up his fist just to see him hunch back.  
  
“And if you're gonna fuck someone at least find someone your own age, no one wants that old dick in them anyway!” Mickey shouts after him, the guy running away before he has a chance to kick him in the ass for good measure.  
  
“Assholes!” he yells over his shoulder at them.  
  
“Know where you live, Martin!” Mickey looks after him until he disappears out of their view, then breathes out and turns around to Ian, can't keep the joy in because he got the money, and laughs out loud. “Piece of shit just looking to get beaten up. Glad to have that over with,” he says and pulls the money out of his pocket to feel the weight of them in his hand again, a bunch of paper guaranteeing their safety – for now, at least.  
  
He startles out of his thoughts as he sees Ian starting to walk away without a word. “Hey, the fuck you going?”  
  
“Who knows,” Ian calls over his shoulder and smiles. Mickey looks around before he huffs out a breath and follows, seeing Ian take a turn and disappear.  
  
“Ia – the fuck – ”  
  
Mickey gets pulled into an alleyway and pressed up against the cold wall of bricks, Ian's lips finding his, and he kisses back before he can think it through, moaning into it as his hand finds the back of Ian's head. Ian gets one leg between Mickey's, grinding up against him, finally bringing Mickey back to reality. He tips his head back to get away from Ian's mouth, but his hands stay firmly put on Mickey's hips, holding him in place.  
  
“The hell you think you're doing? We can't do this out here.”  
  
“Why not?” Ian says, going in for another kiss, but Mickey pushes at his chest.  
  
“For one, I'm going to freeze my balls off before we get anywhere interesting, and second, did you not hear me? We're fucking outside.”  
  
“You've never said no to fucking outside before.”  
  
“Ian – ” Mickey glances out at the road where anyone could walk by.  
  
“No one's gonna come, Mick.”  
  
Mickey sucks his bottom lip into his mouth to keep down the grin and lifts his eyebrows. “Oh, yeah? So what's the point of all of this then?”  
  
Ian's brows furrow for a moment before he gets it and rolls his eyes. “Oh my god,” he says and finally lets himself get pushed away.  
  
“Anyway, come on, man, I got a better idea. We still have an empty hotel room no one's gonna use, right?”  
  
“Oh,” Ian says and puts his hands back into his pockets and smiles. “Good thinking.”  
  
*  
  
“Have you ever tried graffiti?”  
  
Mickey glances to the right side of the big bed where Ian's sitting cross-legged in his underwear, and shakes a cigarette out from its packet to put between his lips. “I look like Picasso to you?” he mumbles, because half the stuff coming out of Ian's mouth nowadays doesn't make much sense.  
  
“I remember seeing some quite handy death threat aimed at me all over – ”  
  
“Yeah, well.” Mickey cuts him off and snorts, because other than spelling Ian's name in giant letters across the wall that one time, he hasn't spent much time painting the city. “That one served you well for being a chicken hiding away. Hand me my lighter, 's in one of my pockets somewhere.”  
  
Ian grins and bends over the edge of the bed to reach for Mickey's jeans and Mickey looks at the room's wall to keep himself from ogling, waiting for Ian to scoot in closer once he's found it. His calf touches Mickey's thigh and Mickey fights the impulse to pull away – to put some distance between them, still unused to hanging around after they've fucked, especially in a goddamned  _bed_ – and stays where he is, reminding himself that right here, right now, he can.  
  
“Yeah, I was _such_ a chicken for hiding from three bulldogs wanting to kill me,” Ian says and rolls his eyes and then his thumb to light the small fire. He smiles at Mickey as he cups his hand around the cigarette and lights it for him, and whether Mickey wants to admit it or not, there are things more thrilling to him than excessive amounts of money.  
  
“Who you calling a bulldog?” he says and lifts his foot to kick Ian's leg, but can't hold back his smile while doing so.  
  
“...But seriously,” Ian says, voice getting excited again, shaking his head when Mickey offers him the cigarette, “I've checked some of it out on my morning runs. I think it'd be cool trying it out. Don't you think?”  
  
“I don't know,” Mickey says absentmindedly and flicks the cigarette. He watches the ashes land on the expensive sheets and wonders what shit the old wrinkled balls at the club he works at have been giving Ian and for how long, because yesterday it was building a boat he was planning to do.  
  
“Don't you want to make something lasting?” Ian says.  
  
“Spraying some shit on some walls? That counts as making something lasting for you?”  
  
“There's this guy I stopped to talk to yesterday on my run – ”  
  
“Did he smell like alcohol and sleep on a bench because those are called _homeless_ – ”  
  
“He was _interesting_ ,” Ian says and Mickey looks at him, seeing him sit with his head tilted and lips quirked up, the way he always looks at him lately, as if he knows so much about the world nowadays that Mickey can't possibly understand.  
  
Mickey shifts, stretching his legs out over the soft bed and shrugs. “Whatever man, if you wanna try it out I'm sure I could find some way to entertain myself or somethin' if you want company.”  
  
Ian lets out a laugh and flops down on his back, starfished on the bed. “When did you get so romantic?” he says, hand resting on his bare chest and smiling widely at the ceiling.  
  
“Or I could let you do it alone.”  
  
“Got anything to do tomorrow?” Ian ignores him, sitting up on his elbows. “You could come by after I finish my shift.”  
  
“No I'll be free, now we got this shit sorted out,” Mickey says and nods to the stack of money on the bedside table – he still hasn't given Ian the details of what his wife wants, and Ian hasn't asked.  
  
“Cool.” Ian says and nothing else, making Mickey work his jaw in the silence that follows.  
  
“...My dad used to kill 'em.”  
  
He doesn't plan to say it but it slips out, and he picks at his nail with his thumb. It's not like Ian's seemed the slightest concerned about what's bothering him.  
  
“Hm?” Ian glances over at him and Mickey rubs his bottom lip with his thumb.  
  
He kind of misses when Ian used to – in a completely annoying and crossing the line way, of course – notice right away when something was up with him and probe at the icky wounds, even when Mickey made it clear he didn't want to talk about it.  
  
Stupid, he'd thought of it, Ian always too nosy and caring and not only open about what _he_ felt and wanted, but expecting everyone else to be the same.  
  
Mickey guesses he can't really complain about Ian changing, but still.  
  
“Faggots.”  
  
Ian smiles and turns to him. “See where you got that lovely trait from,” he says, making Mickey scoff.  
  
“Used to talk about 'em and rapists, how sick they all are,” he says and takes a deep drag on the short stump that's left of the cigarette before putting it out and lighting a new one.  
  
“Well, your dad got the being a hypocrite about rapists – you got the being a hypocrite about gays, so I guess I know who I like more.”  
  
Mickey knows he shouldn't smile but he does, can never stop it around Ian, his mouth opening to tell him to shut the fuck up about what Mickey is or isn't, but he puts the cigarette to his lips instead.  
  
He remembers sitting in the kitchen, can't have been old because he had the pajamas he only wore when his mom was still around. His dad marched up to him and hit him with an open palm across the face, telling him to stop sucking his thumb or he'd kill him, followed by detailed information about what he and his friends did to fags; how they left them to bleed dry on the pavement after beating them up.  
  
Mickey had no idea back then what the hell his dad was even talking about, but he remembers the fear, how scared he was of being whatever his dad was so disgusted by, spending the whole time his brother cleaned up the wound on his cheek staring at his own thumb and wondering what he'd done wrong.  
  
He knows now, and the fear hasn't left his body since that night when he tucked his arms under his pillow not to put his thumb back in his mouth; he knows his dad killing him isn't an exaggeration as much as a possible – and sometimes, he fears, inevitable – outcome.  
  
But he's not going to let it happen.  
  
He's survived this long without his dad killing him – he married his whore of a wife not to get killed in the first place; over his dead body she's going to be the reason it actually happens now, and he knows he means that literally.  
  
Mickey breathes out and watches as Ian gets up and starts to get dressed, and pushes his thoughts away, deciding to drop it.  
  
Nothing good has ever come from talking about shit anyway.


End file.
